WR 122
Fall 2011
The Importance of Learning to Speak SpanishThe population of native Spanish speakers in the US is growing according to the article “10 Facts About the Spanish Language;” which states that “With 329 million native speakers, Spanish ranks as the world's No. 2 language in terms of how many people speak it as their first language. It is slightly ahead of English (328 million) but far behind Chinese (1.2 billion)” (Erichsen). I am going to college to get my degree in Elementary Education. I am taking a course to learn to speak Spanish – hablar español, because I have noticed this myself. According to Spanish SEO’s statistics, the US is the 3rd highest ranking country for Spanish speakers at 44 million people, just behind Mexico and Columbia at 109 million and 45 million, respectively (Worldwide . . . ). As a teacher it is extremely likely that I will have students in my classroom and parents that I’ll need to talk to that are primarily Spanish speakers, and it will be hard for me to do my job if I am not able to effectively and efficiently communicate with them.

I have also noticed that, in our current economy, jobs are harder to come by, and that in order to be competitive in the market, I need to be able to speak Spanish. In an article titled “Bilingual? You’re Valuable” on Careerbuilder.com it states, as of Sep. 2007, that “With more than 40 million Hispanics in the US today and an estimated annual growth rate of 4.65, the Latino community will add 1.7 million people to its population every year. This trend is creating a tremendous demand for bilingual job seekers fluent in Spanish and English” (Bilingual . . . ). Additionally in a more recent article about the 2010 job forecast they reported: Employers have identified having a diverse work force as an important measure of success as they begin to rebuild their businesses after the economic downturn. One area they plan to focus on is building a bilingual team. Nearly four-in-ten...

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